Hundred Years' War

The Hundred Years' War (24 May 1337-19 October 1453) was a series of conflicts waged between the Plantagenet rulers of England and the Valois rulers of France. The war, caused by the extinction of the French House of Capet and a succession dispute, would see five generations of kings fight for control of Western Europe's largest kingdom. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the war gave impetus to the ideas of English and French nationalism. The war precipitated the creation of the first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Roman Empire, and artillery became an important tool of warfare. The result of the war would be the expulsion of England from France (apart from the Pale of Calais, which would not be reconquered until 1558), the strengthening of Valois rule in France, and the Wars of the Roses in England.

Hundred Years' War Begins
The death of King Charles IV of France in 1328 finally provoked conflict between England and France. Charles had no son and there was no clear precedent as to who should succeed him. Edward III of England, as grandson of Philip IV of France through his daughter Isabella of France, had a strong claim. For a few months, the French nobility waited to see if Charles IV's pregnant queen Jeanne of Evreux would provie him with a posthumous male heir, but the baby was a girl. The French nobles turned to Philippe of Valois, a nephew of Philip V, who had the advantages of being 35, a proven leader, and, crucially, was the chairman of the council convened to decide the succession.

Edward's humiliation
On 19 May 1328, he was annointed "Philip VI" at Rheims Cathedral. Although Edward made a direct claim to the throne, in 1329 he was forced into a humiliating act of homage to Philip for his lands in Aquitaine. Philip continued to provoke Edward, getting his lawyers to produce a document stating that what the English king had offered the previous year was liege homage making Philip VI his feudal overlord in all matters, not just those concerning Aquitaine. Edward declined a summons to attend the French court in person, but provided a written statement in 1331, which accepted Philip's argument.

Early skirmishes
Edward had been preoccupied with war against the Scots, but his victory at Halidon Hill in 1333 freed him to turn his attention to France. Both sides postured, seeking allies, and in 1335, the French transferred troop ships intended for a crusade to the Levant to the Norman ports instead, seeming to herald an invasion of England.

Edward took time to assemble an army, and he raised the necessary funds by getting Parliament to grant a tax of one-tenth on all moveable goods and of one-fifteenth on land. A few skirmishes occurred in 1337-38, marking the start of the Hundred Years' War, and finally, in July 1338, Edward set sail for Antwerp. He then moved south toward Cambrai, but Philip resolutely refused to give battle, remaining in safety behind the walls of Amiens. Reduced to the kind of chevauchees, or plundering raids, that would characterize much of the war, Edward grew frustrated. By February 1340, he had almost run out of money and had incurred the staggering sum of 30,000 pounds in debts. He even had to secure permission from his European creditors to return to England.

Master of Brittany
Within months, Edward returned with a fleet of 250 ships. On 24 June, he caught the fleet of the French and their Castilian and Genoese allies in harbor at Sluys. In a battle where the English archers showed their mettle, by securing the boarding of ship after ship on the French line, Philip VI's fleet was decimated and only 30 Genoese vessels managed to escape. Once again, Philip's refusal to give battle led to Edward's campaign running out of steam. The defection of the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Hainaut to the French side then induced Edward to agree to a five-year truce. Even so, the fighting continued over Brittany, since the would-be duke John of Montfort offered his fealty to Edward in June 1341, and the English knew well that they would need ports if the war with France should spread again. By 1345, Edward was the master of Brittany, and, though a treaty between the two sides was notionally due to expire only in September 1346, both began to prepare for inevitable conflict.

Victory at Crecy
On 11 June 1346, Edward landed near Saint-Vaast. He had around 15,000 soldiers, and he advanced on Paris, but faced stiff resistance. On 13 August, at Poissy, he resolved to turn back north. This time, he was pursued all the way by Philip, and they met near Crecy and the French were crushed. Even victorious, Edward lacked the numbers to attack Paris and so headed to Calais. A prolonged siege ensued, and, once more denied significant gains, Edward went home in September 1347, having concluded a treaty due to last until 1355.

Treaty of Guines
Philip VI died in 1350 and was replaced by Jean le Bel, who tried to seize land in Aquitaine. In Brittany, a French army made a failed attack on Rennes. Under pressure from these reverses and a rebellion in Navarre, Jean agreed to the Treaty of Guines in 1354. By this, Edward obtained Aquitaine, Anjou, Poitou, Touraine, Maine, and Normandy without giving homage to the French crown. The next year, however, Jean repudiated the treaty and war broke out again.

The Black Prince
English forces were now commanded by Edward the Black Prince, the Prince of Wales. Having arrived at Bordeaux in autumn 1355, he thrust toward Paris, but finding resistance too stiff, turned back to Aquitaine. On 19 August 1356, near Poitiers, he was overtaken by Jean le Bel and forced to give battle. Once again, a French charge collapsed in the face of English archery, but this time the English knights and men-at-arms contributed to a crushing defeat of the French, which left more than one-quarter of their knights dead or captive. Among the prisoners was Jean le Bel. The English demanded 4,000,000 gold ecus to ransom the French king and the cession to them of around one-third of France. In 1359 ,they increased this to all territory north of the Loire, plus a huge swathe around Aquitaine - almost half the k ingdom. The Dauphin Charles V, hier to the French throne, rejected this and continued the war as best he could. The English, however, became bogged down and had to retreat to Orleans and negotiate a new settlement. The Treaty of Bretigny in May 1360 reduced the ransom to 3,000,000 gold ecus and the territorial demands to coastal lands around Calais and the Somme, plus Ponthieu and Aquitaine, while Edward renounced his claim to the French throne. With final victory in their grasp, the English had again let it slip away.

Loss of territory
Edward III's failure to give homage to Jean le Bel reignited the war in the 1360s. The only major English success was in 1367, at Najera, when they helped Peter the Cruel of Castile reclaim his throne. In 1369, Charles V of France confiscated Aquitaine and occupied most of the English territory. A treaty in 1374 with John of Gaunt gave the English a brief respite, but war broke out again in 1377. Most remaining English garrisons were seized. The Treaty of Guerande in 1381 left them with little save a strip around Bordeaux and a few towns in Brittany.

The Later Hundred Years' War
In 1388, Charles VI of France came of age, and the next year, Richard II of England managed to rid himself of the Lords Appellant, who for three years had kept him sidelined and persecuted his leading supporters. Both monarchs now ruled personally and turned to the relations between them. Aquitaine had long been a running sore that kept the Hundred Years' War alive. In particular, the matter of whether the King of England should render homage to the French king was still unresolved. Discussion raged between 1389 and 1392 and, though no agreement was reached, an exchange of lands was agreed, by which the English acquired lands bordering Aquitaine in exchange for Poitou, Limousin, and Ponthieu. The French also demanded Calais, but the English royal council refused point blank to relinquish the site of the lucrative wool staple and it seemed as though war might break out after all. Only the intervention of Richard II, who requested the hand in marriage of Isabella of Valois, the daughter of Charles VI, averted conflict. A truce was agreed, which should have meant peace between the two countries until 1420.

Power struggles
Several events helped reignite the war before then. The first was that Charles VI had a violent fit that sent him mad in 1392. Periodically thereafter he would descend into madness, convinced that he was made of glass and might shatter at the slightest touch. A power struggle broke out between Philip the Bold of Burgundy (and John the Fearless, his successor from 1404) and the King's brother, Louis I of Orleans. Louis' murder on a Paris street in 1407 sent France into a state of near civil war.

If France was in no state to continue the war, neither was England. Henry IV of England, who had usurped Richard II's throne, had to deal with revolts in England led by the Percy Dukes of Northumberland and a Welsh uprising under Owain Glyndwr, which was subdued in 1410.

Henry V's demands
Shortly after Henry V came to the throne in April 1413, the Burgundians were driven from Paris and so Duke John was particularly receptive to the new English king's overtures regarding a renewed war with France. Both he and CHarles VI, however, were taken aback by the scale of Henry's ambitions: he demanded nothing less than to be recognized as the heir to the French throne. Negotiations broke down in February 1415, and Henry prepared for war. The House of Commons granted Henry a large grant in taxation; even the bishops gave him a loan of 44,000 pounds. Knights and archers were recruited from across the land. Despite a last-minute French peace offer, Henry was set on war. On 11 August, he sailed from Southampton with 10,000 men - including 2,000 knights and men-at-arms, 8,000 archers, and 75 gunners. He landed at Harfleur but took until 22 September to force the town to surrender. Meanwhile, the French had been gathering their forces. Three divisions under Charles d'Albret, the Constable of France, Jean Le Maingre, the Marshal of France, and the King himself converged on Henry V's army. The English had lost 2,000 men at the siege of Harfleur and Henry could only muster a mere 7,000 men, less than one-quarter hte size of the French army approaching him.

Victory at Agincourt
The English struck out toward the Somme in a desperate attempt to evade their pursuers and cross the river at Blanchetaque, just as Edward III had done before the Battle of Crecy. However, they found the crossing blocked by Marshal Le Maingre and 6,000 men, and were forced far to the south. Henry desperately tried to avoid a pitched battle and find a way through to Calais, but then, three days later, he discovered his way barred by the entire French army.

Brought to bay, Henry made the best of his position, drawing his troops in such a way that the French could only advance along a narrow front hemmed in by the castle woods of Agincourt. At around 11:00 AM on the morning of 25 October, the English archers erected a makesfhift barrier of stakes and then loosed a murderous volley into the French line. The French knights charged but, felled by arrows, they crashed into each other and were run into from behind by their own men coming forward to reinforce them. Their line collapsed into a writhing chivalric muddle. The English men-at-arms fell on the Frenhc survivors, cutting those who resisted to pieces. D'Albret was killed, and the Duke of Orleans and Marshal Le Maingre captured. A late French rally only had the effect of causing Henry V to order the killing of all French prisoners, save the great lords. The French losses were catastrophic: 8,000 dead and 1,600 prisoners, again just 500 English casualties.

Leaderless
Throughout 1415, the English, led by the Earl of Dorset, and John the Fearless' Burgundians gradually choked off French royalist resistance. In 1417, Henry returned with a new force of 8,000. He took Caen in September, and then reduced the rest of Normandy until Rouen fell to him in January 1419. In the meantime, John the Fearless had seized Paris. France was leaderless, with the Constable dead and the King insane. Charles VI's eldest son died in 1416; the new Dauphin Charles was 15 years old. In 1420, the French faced the inevitable and signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which the Dauphin was declared illegitimate and Henry V became heir to the throne. Supporters of the Dauphin continued to resist, but Henry and Philip the Good, the new Duke of Burgundy, advanced remorselessly.

All change
Henry V's death from dysentery in August 1422, changed the position radically, as his heir was just nine months old. The regent, John, Duke of Bedford, campaigned ably, but the English Parliament was increasingly unwilling to grant large subsidies for the war. The Duke of Burgundy opened negotiations with the Dauphin about switching sides, and in 1427, the Duke of Burgundy defected to the Dauphin's side. It was against this background that the English, under the Earl of Salisbury, moved south in 1428, and reached Orleans in October. If he could seize this great citadel, the Earl reasoned, he might be able to throttle the French revival at birth.

Divine mission
The Earl reckoned without two things. The first was the cannonball that struck him on 24 October, causing him to die of gangrene a week later. The second was a peasant girl, Joan of Arc, who arrived in the French camp in March, convinced she had a divine mission to set the Douphin on the French throne. Joan's religious charisma and reckless impetuousness worked and the French army were inspired to chase the English from Orleans by 8 May.

Unstoppable Charles
Charles was crowned King of France at Rheims on 18 July 1429, and the French armies, now seemingly unstoppable, swept northward, taking a string of cities. Even Joan's death in 1431 did not stop the French revival. At a peace conference in Arras, in 1435, the Burgundians switched sides, and by 1436, Paris had fallen to them. Charles reorganized his armies, setting up compagnies d'ordonnance that were strictly drilled and trained, and which helped him to gradually reduce the English territories in Aquitaine. His commanders' effective use of field artillery was not matched by the English and, despite a two-year truce that was signed at Tours in 1446, Henry VI of England's armies were driven from Normandy in 1449. It looked very much as if the war would end with the English in precisely the same situation they had been in 1381.

End of the war
In 1450, the French invaded Aquitaine. At the Battle of Formigny on 15 April, French cannon fire cut through the English defenses and destroyed the last English field army in France. English fortunes looked as though they might revive when a new English army under John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury landed in October 1452. However, at Castillon on 17 July 1453, this force was torn to pieces by the combination of French cannon and the discipline of the compagnies d'ordonnance. Bordeaux surrendered in October and the Hundred Years' War was at an end.

Calais resisted as a solitary outpost until its loss to the French in 1558, during the reign of Queen Mary I of England. To all intents and purposes, however, the English territorial involement in France, which had begun in 1066, was over.